Mchale's Service Is Honorable

December 13, 1990|The Morning Call

To the Editor:

I am a part-time member of Rep. Paul McHale's staff. I hope that my job does not disqualify my reaction to your Nov. 30 editorial advising Rep. McHale to resign. The Morning Call's editorial placed peculiar emphasis on the voluntary nature of Rep. McHale's military service.

Rep. McHale made his services available to the Marine Corps with or without his assigned reserve unit. The Marine Corps determined that his skills, in fact, were needed and ordered him to help lead a recently activated reserve unit.

It seems that Rep. McHale believes that his military duty begins whenever the country must project strength greater than our standing army's. Rep. McHale is not alone among reservists from our area in making himself available to Operation Desert Shield with or without his assigned unit.

The Morning Call is wrong to suggest that this trivial distinction (between activation with our without one's assigned reserve unit) pertains in any way to the propriety of Rep. McHale's unpaid leave of absence from the legislature. When reservists are called upon to put aside civilian duties and bear arms, their willingness to do so ought not be judged as stronger than their civilian commitments. Families, employers and neighbors ought to strive to see reservists' military service as parallel rather than competing commitments.

Those who know Rep. McHale know that he will serve his nation and his community to his utmost. The Morning Call's haste to find quandary in an honorable man's public service is unseemly. John Zuraw Bethlehem